The Butler Was Looking Forward

Mortalos – a 100 word story

The voices whispered to him, promising more power. He ignored them, focusing void and shadow magic on a single candle. The candle lit, happy flame bursting into life. He used the powers on a second candle, then made sure the table map had no wrinkles, the plates were set exactly opposite each other and the cutlery was positioned just right. “Dinner is served,” he announced. Being an undead shadow priest was not what he imagined, but it had its benefits and the master paid well. Mortalos The Butler was looking forward to the benefits of an extraordinarily long retirement plan.

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Hi there and thanks for stopping by. I’m Guy, and you’re listening to my surreal sketchbook of reality.

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Episode 14, The Butler Was Looking Forward

While magic in the real world is based on tricks and illusions, in the world of fantasy it is derived from invented science that is often derived from mythology and discarded scientific theories. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at magic. I’m not a professional philosopher by any means and my approach can be quite absurd, illogical and not at all that serious, so – you’ve been warned. Do not take this podcast too seriously. If you tend to take things too seriously, this might not be the podcast for you. Seriously. I mean it. Find another podcast to listen to.

You’re still here? Good. Let’s talk about magic. In the real world, a magician is an illusionist, a trickster of the mind, a mentalist who tricks you into believing something happened when in fact, something entirely different is right in front of your eyes. A good magician is actually a psychologist or a social scientist, analyzing your behavior, or the behavior of an entire audience, then using that analysis to create an illusion such as the disappearance or the transformation of an object. He can trick you into believing he knows something he doesn’t by extracting the information from you, without your even noticing it. For example, he can tell you something that happened in your past by having you tell him the event while having you believe you hasn’t really told him anything.

Some magic tricks call for an illusion in which what you see is not physically possible, like a person suspended in mid-air or in a box that is sawn in two. This calls for manipulation of the angle in which you view the illusion or the participation of another person who is in on the trick. A good magician can use mirrors, smoke or just position things a certain way for them to look impossible. In the end, it’s all tricks. Magic in the real world is not real. If it’s real, it’s not really magic, it’s science, and science can sometimes look like magic to the untrained eye, but it’s not really magic. The science of fantasy magic is something completely different though. I’m going to magically disappear now and appear on the other side of a short break. I’ll be right back.

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Human Food – a 100 word story

It was green, wet and wrinkled. Quansity stared at it with disgust. “What is it?” he asked. “It’s Human food,” said Ginswey knowingly, “it’s called a pickle.” Quansity continued staring at the dripping green thing on the green dining table. “You mean they eat that stuff?” he asked, horrified. “Yes, and quite eagerly too” answered Ginswey, “but that’s not the worst thing those barbarians eat.” Quansity held his breath and started looking a little green himself. “You mean… there’s worst?” he asked, astonished. “Yes,” said Ginsway, “there is this thing called eggplant lasagna. It’s very popular, or so I’m told.”

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Welcome back. Magic in fantasy is often derived from mythology and scientific theories that have been disputed. Until the end of the 19th-century, scientists believed there’s a substance called “aether” that connects the universe and keeps everything from falling apart. This theory has been long since abandoned, but it’s the basis of magic in several fantasy writings, where things can be sometimes pulled out of thin air using the aether. The aether in fantasy can be a magical power that powers all life and it can be the basis of using magical powers.

Another thing fantasy worlds use is the idea of basic elements as a source of magical powers. Those are not the same elements that exist in the real world and they are not made of atoms. They are more akin to the elements taken from several mythologies, where base elements such as fire, earth, and wind were said to make up our world. While we now know that the world is made up of atoms, those base elements of mythology are perfect for fantasy writing and are often used there. The kind of magic you use in fantasy would be influenced by the element you are attuned to. If you are attuned to a fire element, for example, you would be able to shoot fire out of your hands, but if you are attuned to the water element you would shoot ice instead. It is common in fantasy to mix and match elements to create spectacular literary magical special effects.

Another literary device for fantasy magic is the one that moves machinery. Machines in fantasy worlds often don’t use real-world mechanics and instead rely on some magical power or another to function, most often a crystal with magical powers. In fact, crystals in fantasy are often used as a conduit or storage device for magical energy. In that way, magic can have a physical form that can be stored and used at will. Magic crystals can power anything from small vehicles to whole cities. Fantasy itself is a vessel that stores magic that enriches our lives and can make them much more interesting while stimulating our imagination. This concludes episode 14 of this podcast. Close the door on your way out and don’t forget – I’m just a figment of your imagination.

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Clockwork Tide

Snow – a 100 word story

The snow has been falling, dripping on my heart for days, and it is now frozen. No sound is coming out, no internal clock ticking, clicking the days of my mortal prison away. Gone are the days, chased by time rushing by, washing me away in its clockwork tide, forgotten in a prison of ice. The rain will wash my pain away, leave me clean, cold and still. I’m forever blue, in a crystalized ice cage, here I stay, unmoving, uncaring, for all my cares are gone, forgotten, as I forever sleep, with a frozen heart, buried under deep snow.

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Hi there and thanks for stopping by. I’m Guy, and you’re listening to my surreal sketchbook of reality.

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Episode 13, Clockwork Tide

Some say that everything that happens is predetermined by cause and effect. Some say it’s all just random events. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at determinism, causation, and randomness. I’m not a professional philosopher by any means and my approach can be quite absurd, illogical and not at all that serious, so – you’ve been warned. Do not take this podcast too seriously. If you tend to take things too seriously, this might not be the podcast for you. Seriously. I mean it. Find another podcast to listen to.

You’re still here? Good. Let’s talk about randomness versus determinism. First, let’s look at randomness as reflected by chaos geometry which derives from chaos theory. Chaos theory studies the mathematics of randomness. While studying random numbers, it was discovered that those numbers follow the same pattern of many natural occurrences. Many of the natural things that appear random actually have a method within them and that method follows chaos geometry. If you look at the edge of a random shape, let’s say – a cloud, you would see shapes that resemble the shape of the whole cloud, only smaller and not exactly the same, just resembling the whole cloud. That is true for any random thing you would look at, from the shape of a snowflake to the way the weather behaves. Things that appear random seem to hold the seed of themselves. That is the essence of chaos geometry and it suggests that nothing is truly random.

Next, let’s look at cause and effect. When clouds collide it causes a release of an electrical charge, that manifests itself in the form of thunder and lightning. If that electrical charge hits something, let’s say a tree, it can cause the tree to catch on fire. If the tree is close to other trees they can also catch fire and you can get a forest fire. This is called a chain of events. In this chain of events, colliding clouds caused a forest fire. The question is, where do chains of events start and when do they end? You can take the events further and see what happens after the fire is over or go back and see how the clouds were formed in the first place. Events don’t start with one event or finish with another, they are a continuous progression of one event leading to another with lots of side events branching from them. Determinism says that events can only go one way. There is really only one option for the events to unfold. For example, the only thing that can possibly happen now is that I take a break. I’ll be right back.

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The Chair – a 100 word story

“Address the chair,” said the head table. “I beg to differ” uttered the chest of drawers but the cupboard shushed her. The respectable window curtain walked in. An appreciative silence filled the room. A sofa moaned. “I think that sofa ate too much last night” whispered a bed to a cabinet. The cabinet just shrugged and said “that sofa would be very hungry when there is no food left. There is a limited amount of unsuspecting people around you know.” The chair cleared his throat and said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all furniture are created equal…”

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Welcome back. Determinism tells us that everything has a cause and effect that can only lead one way. You can’t really prevent that forest fire. There is no real choice. If we get all the facts about what causes what we can mathematically calculate all the causes and effects and accurately predict the future. The problem is that we can’t collect all the causes and all the effects. There are just too many of them.

Another question that comes to mind is if everything is really predetermined, do we really make decisions? Is there such a thing as free will? The same way that a forest fire is caused by clouds colliding, our thought process is determined by a combination of what we experience and the structure of our genome. Everything we are is determined by some outside force or by the way we are physically built. If you want to believe in free will, you could say that we can decide what we take in from our environment and what we decide to use to build our self-identity. Even if this is an illusion and we don’t really decide, I believe we should try to become a better version of ourselves. That is because this is who I am. I believe that we should strive to leave the world in a better state then we got it. It doesn’t matter if things are predetermined or not. It is the choices we presume to make that matter, and we should not act as if the world is deterministic. We should embrace the illusion of choice and make a better world for ourselves. This concludes episode 13 of this podcast. Close the door on your way out and don’t forget – I’m just a figment of your imagination.

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The Lights Were Too Fast

Aurora Borealis – a 100 word story

The northern lights wanted to play with the sky, but it was not feeling that playful, so they descended the earth and tried to play with the trees instead. The trees became tired since the lights were too fast for them so the lights had to let them go. They tried to play with the earth instead but it was too hard and dry. As the lights began ascending the sky, a bird started singing to them. That delighted the lights so they started singing themselves. You might still hear them singing to this day if you listen very carefully.

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Hi there and thanks for stopping by. I’m Guy, and you’re listening to my surreal sketchbook of reality.

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Episode 12, The Lights Were Too Fast

Sentience is your sense of self, the knowledge you exist. Consciousness is the idea of being awake and in the real world. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at sentience, consciousness and the interaction between them. I’m not a professional philosopher by any means and my approach can be quite absurd, illogical and not at all that serious, so – you’ve been warned. Do not take this podcast too seriously. If you tend to take things too seriously, this might not be the podcast for you. Seriously. I mean it. Find another podcast to listen to.

You’re still here? Good. Let’s talk about sentience and consciousness. You know you exist, at least you think you do. You can see and feel your own body through your senses and you are aware of your own thoughts. Your senses might not be as reliable as you think (and we’ve seen that on previous episodes) but you spent enough time with yourself to know there’s definitely something there. There is a “you,” isn’t there? It’s not as clear cut as it seems. It would be easier if your consciousness was continuous, but it isn’t. Your mind is prone to wander off in a daydream and in sleep, it seems to be somewhere else entirely.

Dreams are like a break in consciousness. Even in dreams, you seem to be self-aware of your existence, but when you wake up, none of it seems real anymore, sometimes including your dream self. The state of consciousness in the dream state is so different than the waking state of consciousness, that you can start questioning which is the real state of consciousness. While it is a common conception that the waking state is the real state of consciousness, that is a hard thing to prove. We just take it for granted, but then, how real is real? How about someone who has lost consciousness completely and is stuck in a constant state of dream? Is his reality less real than our reality? How can you be sure that you are actually in a conscious state? I’ve been dreaming of taking a break. I’ll be right back.

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The Red Yak of Destiny – a 100 word story

The Red Yak of Destiny is an understanding god. When we need crops for the winter, he gives us crops. When we battle with the Twotelgloo tribe, we win. Last summer, I went and asked The Red Yak of Destiny for a son, but instead, he gave me a daughter. I got angry at him. I went back to him and said: “you gave me a daughter when I asked for a son.” He just smiled and asked me to bring my wife. Next summer I had two sons. Sure, they have long red fur and horns, but they’re mine.

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Welcome back. You are aware of yourself even when you are inside a dream. You can think, though your thoughts may be scattered and disorganized. Your sentient dream state is different, surreal. In fact, surrealism was originally inspired by dreams. In dreams, the disjointed nature of thought is more obvious than in the wakening state, but your everyday thought is sometimes just as disorganized as your dream thoughts. Thoughts wander from one topic to another and your awareness of your surroundings sometimes conflicts with your preoccupation with your inner turmoil.

You do know you exist, even if your thoughts are sometimes random and your consciousness is questionable. In fact, you can’t really know for sure if you’re conscious. Knowing that you exist, your own sentience can be summed up in a single sentence, I think therefore I am, even though I might be unconscious. That way, sentience, and self-awareness might exist even without consciousness. This whole existence of yours might actually, be an ongoing dream. This concludes episode 12 of this podcast. Close the door on your way out and don’t forget – I’m just a figment of your imagination.

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